November 17: What Happened on This Day in History (High_school Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1558 - Elizabethan era begins: Queen Mary I of England dies and is succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth I of England.
2. 1777 - Articles of Confederation (United States) are submitted to the states for ratification.
3. 1800 - The United States Congress holds its first session in Washington, D.C.
4. 1820 - Captain Nathaniel Palmer becomes the first American to see Antarctica(the Palmer Peninsula is later named after him).
5. 1855 - David Livingstone becomes the first European to see the Victoria Falls in what is now present-day Zambia-Zimbabwe.
6. 1856 - American Old West: On the Sonoita River in present-day southernArizona, the United States Army establishes Fort Buchanan in order to help control new land acquired in the Gadsden Purchase.
7. 1869 - In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is inaugurated.
8. 1947 - American scientists John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain observe the basic principles of the transistor, a key element for the electronics revolution of the 20th century.
9. 1990 - Fugendake, part of the Mount Unzen volcanic complex, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan, becomes active again and erupts.
10. 1993 - United States House of Representatives passes resolution to establish the North American Free Trade Agreement after greater authority in trade negotiations was granted to President George Bush in 1991.
11. Famous Birthdays: Agnolo di Cosimo (Italian painter), Nicolas Appert (French chef, inventor of canning ), August Ferdinand Möbius (German mathematician), Grace Abbott (American social worker), Eugene Wigner (Hungarian physicist and mathematician, Nobel Prize laureate)

For famous birthdays and other daily events in history, visit our Daily Dose Activities.

Click Here for Yesterday in History: November 16

Click Here for Tomorrow in History: November 18

For more history resources on Internet 4 Classrooms, visit our Social Studies and History index. For Pre K-8th Grade Level History and Social Studies Resources, visit our Grade Level Index.